


No Amnesty

by oroszlan



Series: Huddled masses yearning to breathe free [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: BAMF Harry Potter, BAMF Hermione Granger, Black Hermione Granger, Gen, Good Slytherins, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter Friendship, Home Children, Slytherin Harry Potter, Slytherin Hermione Granger, Slytherins Being Slytherins, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, deportation, dodgy events that actually happened in britain (a montage), this is what happens when you traumatise children just saying
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-28 08:58:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13900662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oroszlan/pseuds/oroszlan
Summary: harry potter is the child of a degenerate.hermione granger is too smart for her own good.there was only ever one way this story could end.





	No Amnesty

Harry Potter is the child of a degenerate. Left on a muggle doorstep, he has the wrong hair, the wrong eyes, the wrong skin for Little Whinging. Something in his gaze indicates intelligence. Something in his gaze indicates something _other_ , something unsettling. Something that made him _not like us_.

Petunia doesn’t protest when they take the baby away, the son of her sister, _traitorous, strange, unnatural, whore_ sister. _Dead_ sister. _Dead_ brother-in-law.

(Their son is better off with their kind.)

It is 1981 and the race riots are reaching their heights. It is not safe for Harry to be there. He will be safer outside of the rolling green hills of England and a burgeoning sense of civil war.

(Peace isn’t something Harry will know for a long, long time.)

Hermione Granger is too smart for her own good. Her dark eyes watch where you move in the room, and she is either much too quiet or much too loud, her hair crackling and curling as if a storm lingers overhead, its static signalling a strike preparing itself, pent up energy looking for someplace to go. She is a dangerous child, one can tell, asking too many questions, or not enough. She’s better off somewhere, anywhere, where someone can handle such a ‘difficult’ child. Somewhere where her hair, her skin doesn’t mark her as a target. Somewhere safe. Somewhere they can be safe from her.

(Hermione knows the word conflict, how it rolls on the tongue, sharp. Man vs Nature. Man vs Man. Man vs Self. Hermione has fighting tattooed onto her bones.)

(The wizarding world has a word for such strange children, such squibs. Not able to fit in their world. Not right. Not natural.

It is funny, how misfits are the same in every country, every world, every plane. Exposure, they called it in the ancient world, unwilling to call it murder. Exposure. Sink or swim, the cold creeping into your bones until you can’t breathe, can’t do anything, and your screams go silent. Either the cold gets you, or the wolves do. Neither are a kindness. Both are a mercy.)

(Harry and Hermione find themselves in a forest all the same.)

In the muggle world, they don’t have things like magical ‘accidents’, but children disappear all the time regardless. The Home Children program takes care of 'problematic' children, and that is where they end up, too young to understand words like _deportion  
_ and _alien_. Too young to know how to be scared.

Both are shipped off to a brand-new life in West Zimbabwe, two children lost in the chaos of bureaucracy and the fears of terrorism. No-one pays two children with the wrong-coloured skin a second thought. Maybe their paperwork is wrong. Maybe it is right. Each answer is equally devastating, now, if they think on it, huddled cold and lonely under a moonless sky.

The government had assured them that the violence is minimal. They were too young to understand violence, really, beyond petty playground squabbles. They were told that it is safe. They were liars, like governments tend to be.

Harry and Hermione arrive at the tail end of the Rhodesian Bush War. The Gukurahundi massacres begin two years later. They are three and four years old, and their earliest memories are that of violence, of public executions at the hands of the Fifth Brigade, of people burning alive in their homes.

They are taken in by so many different families, carried in the arms of people they never knew. When they get old enough to walk, to run, they know only how to keep moving, keep working themselves to the bone, keep _surviving.  
_ Most days, surviving is all they can do.

They keep away from refugee camps, away from anywhere people can take your name down’ they hear of clothes eating people alive, of poison in the air, in the water, in the ground, in your hair, in your eyes until all you can do is cry, blood rolling down your face in fat droplets, copper gathering on your tongue, mixing with salt and bitterness –

There is nowhere to turn. Churches are not safe, faith is not bulletproof.

Harry is the son of a degenerate doing anything to survive. Hermione is too smart for her own good, and thinking thinking thinking about the men who might be just round the next corner. Being out after curfew is dangerous, but its more dangerous to be inside the town walls, and waiting for the gunshot.

(They are told, years later, that the estimated death toll is nearly 20,000 people, and think of the countless close calls they can remember. The word _Lucky_ does not ever grace their lips.)

It wasn't until they were ten and just-about-to-turn-eleven that the violence truly began to end, and they began to rebuild.

Hermione still flinches whenever she sees a government official.

Harry hears the screams whenever he sleeps.

They are children of violence. They know nothing of the green rolling hills of England, nothing that isn't dust and blood heavy in the air and a life that is already stretching out in front of them with the suggestion that this war will go on forever. They don’t have a concept of future, but sometimes Hermione thinks to herself that it might be nice.

What they do know is Mugabe, and Mugabe's violence.

(They are not children of peace.)

And it is a world-changer, that when they are eleven-and nearly-twelve, Harry receives a letter, inviting him to a school. A Magical School. Hermione does not receive a letter.

(She pretends this does not break her heart)

They tell nobody. They have survived eleven years together, and they are determined to survive eleven more.

(Harry tells her quietly that night that he doesn't want to be a murderer, doesn't want to be a wizard)

(Hermione thinks of the stories of witches - of hyenas, and of killing in broad daylight, women eating their children and barely manages not to be sick)

The letters keep coming.

They leave town immediately, before someone comes looking for Harry. Before, Hermione thinks to herself, someone takes him away from her, her Harry. Her Harry, the only brother she has. She cannot imagine life without him. Sometimes she wonders if he can imagine a life – a better life, a magical and perfect life – without her. She thinks she’s too scared to ask.

They are eleven and-nearly-twelve and they are running for their lives. Again. It is a comforting familiarity and a sensation that causes their breath to catch in their lungs, twisting to look over their shoulders with the ever-present fear of someone looming over them, hand outstretched -

But eventually, of course, somebody catches up to them, and of course, it is not a fellow Zimbabwean. It is not someone who would understand them.

They call themselves a teacher at this school, and they say they are here for Hermione.

Not Harry. They say they are here for Hermione, and she doesn’t understand because the letter said – the letter said -

He's an adult, and Harry shares a look with Hermione, tired and dusty and sore. He does not know if he can outrun or outfight this man, does not know what kind of trickery he holds in his billowing black sleeves. Hermione is as helpless as he is. The man tells them again that he is here for Hermione.

"Alright," Hermione grinds out, fear coursing in her veins, and she feels viciously pleased when the man startles at her English. It's far from perfect, but she has a good grasp of the language, as does Harry. Just because she is from Zimbabwe doesn't mean she isn't smart, after all - their prime minister, Mugabe was the best educated man in all of Africa.

They stop running. They have to stop running, because the man says he can follow Hermione to the ends of the earth if he needs to. Harry is angry. Hermione, in comparison, is incandescently furious. It is just them and the man, standing in the middle of the road, and the children are so, so tired. And eventually, they agree to go to ‘Hogwarts’ after Snape spends a number of hours explaining to them that witches and wizards are not murderers with a pained look on his face. They agree out of a desire to rest, more than anything else.

When the Professor says to Hermione that they ought to go, both she and Harry step forwards. He tries to explain to them that this wasn’t how it worked. That he was there for Hermione, and Hermione only.

Harry produced his letter, in the end, the white parchment tattered and creased, smudged with dust and dirt. The Professor looks it over with a scowl, eyebrows raised.

“Ah,” he says. “Mister Potter.”

Hermione doesn’t know what the look on his face means, but she knows that she doesn’t like it.

(Professor Snape looks more than a little disgruntled at everything, and seems much at odds with Zimbabwe in general. His dislike of children is readily apparent, and Hermione wonders why he chose to teach. She thinks about power, and this man, and resolves not to be alone with him. Not to let Harry to be alone with him.)

The Professor takes them away from their home, no matter how unpolite and angry he is, and Hermione doesn't know whether to love him or hate him for that. Doesn’t know if she misses the plains and towns, the rising hills, the people, the bustle of life and the familiarity of the language in her ears. Doesn’t know if she misses the memory of blood mixing with the dirt, red berets jutting proudly against a bloody sky. She tries not to think about it too much, regret mixing with relief in her chest.

Harry hates London, hates the bustle and flow and the sheer strangeness of the people, and Hermione finds herself beginning to dislike it as time goes by. It’s too strange, too foreign, the people eying them with distrust, and Hermione can feel herself buckling under the pressure of their gazes, sometimes. The only person she perhaps distrusts more is the Professor. He watches them, eyes dark, and she still doesn’t know why.

(more accurately; he watches Harry, and she thinks she knows why, and it makes her sick.)

They buy their school supplies and stick to themselves, alone in a rented-out room until term starts. Their supplies aren't cheap, and Hermione is loathe to waste paper already, but there is only so much one can do before they turn their minds to school-work. Or she does, at the very least.

It gives them a lot of time to think, and a lot of time to plan.

Harry finds out who his parents are pretty quickly after they do some research. He isn't surprised they are dead, but he runs the pads of his fingers over their moving picture reverently for hours, memorising their faces. Until a few days ago, he wasn't even sure if Potter was his last name, let alone that he had a family once. He hides the single photograph religiously from the Professor, not through distrust but through possessiveness. He doesn’t want to share this, not yet.

(he doesn’t ask about the War. Somehow, he isn’t surprised he is a child born of conflict and strife.)

Hermione tries not to cry when they cannot find hers, and tells herself firmly that it doesn't matter. That her parents are irrelevant when it comes to this. That it is her achievements and work that matter, really. That she isn’t just there because of Harry because the Professor came looking for her first. Because she isn’t. She isn’t.

When the day comes to leave, Hermione is nervous, shifting from foot to foot while Harry laughs and races ahead, his owl screeching indignantly as it's cage swings wildly, bought in a passing moment of fancy in the Eeylops Emporium. They’ve never had a pet before.

Hermione shares a look with her cat, who meeps at her encouragingly, green eyes flitting from one detail to another.

She takes a deep breath, and follows her almost-brother onto the train.

(There are, of course, things Hermione and Harry don’t see.)

(For example; a firecall, the sudden crack of a log sounding uncomfortably like something else – he would say spellfire, but the cruelties he’s seen in the last few days are reminiscent of something more mundane, more ominous. There is a man in the fireplace, and his visage is friendly, hiding something else underneath. Something worse.

There are questions, of course there are. There are answers that aren’t answers, not really.

Am I not allowed to make mistakes, comes the first one. I believed he had been returned to his family, the second. I thought he was better off there, the third. I didn’t know, the fourth.

I didn’t know, sorrow and regret flickering in half-moon glasses, I didn’t know.)

(When one wants a martyr, you must first break them down. When one wants a soldier, you first teach them war. A state of anarchy and destitution breeds the right mix of desperation and hopefulness; the boy learns to fight back the wolves, returning triumphant from the cold mountain peak, desperate for the warmth of society.

Desperate.

War has its use in allowing courage to spark, bravery to be born, teaches chivalry and love for those they fight for. War has its use, because when the weary soldier is given peace and stability, they will fight like the devil to keep it, fight like the devil to protect it for others.)

(There is a difference between struggle and war. What Albus Dumbledore does not yet understand is the balance; struggle makes you desperate, and a war can unmake a man. What Albus Dumbledore does not yet understand is what he has done.)

(There are no questions asked about the little girl with lightning-struck hair. The Professor does not ask. The Man in the fireplace does not care.)

The girl continues on regardless. Hogwarts is nothing and everything that Hermione was expecting, and she isn't ashamed to say it blindsides her a little at first when they arrive, despite her having consumed as many books as she could get her hands on in order to try and understand. She still doesn’t understand, but she likes to pretend she does, because Harry gets the look in his eye, and turns to her, and she can pretend that is still the two of them against the world, and between them they have all of the answers.

She stares at the ceiling, which looks like the night sky, and is only mildly disturbed by the fact she doesn't recognise any of the constellations, cannot trace a single familiar figure. She is far from home, she knows, but she doesn’t expect it to strike her so deeply, and she drops her head, examining her shoes that are still nothing like anything she’s ever owned, black leather with far too many buttons, scuffed a little at the toes already. She winces, and focuses on the back of the person in front of her instead.

When they read her name out, she approaches the stool cautiously, and tries to remind herself to breathe as the Hat drops down onto her head.

 _Oh,_ says something in her head. _Oh, sweet child._

Hermione doesn't say anything. What can she say?

 _It gets better now,_ the Hat tells her quietly. _Hogwarts is a place of peace for the most part. Now, where to put you?_

Hermione thinks of home, and of survival, and of pride in her country despite everything. Zimbabwe may have been fucked-up, but it was the only home she had, and she loved it with an aching fierceness, hated it with desperation and she clung onto that dichotomy for fear of either.

 The Hat chuckles in her ears, head, ears and she feels vaguely nauseous. _Better be_ **Slytherin!**

She stands, and makes her way to the green table, head held high. Slytherin is the House that values cunning, and resourcefulness and Hermione has those qualities in spades.

(She wonders if Harry will follow her, dread building in her stomach. She isn't sure if she could bear to be parted with him, not now when they have come all this way.)

(She is the only one who isn't surprised when Harry follows her into Slytherin House, grin just as sharp as hers.)

 Slytherin House is not an easy House to be in for them, but if there is anything their trials and tribulations have taught them it is to keep their head down and survive.

Professor Snape still dislikes them immensely, that they can tell, but he seems more content to pretend they don't exist, and Harry is happy to stick to this status quo.

The other boys in his dorm seem nice enough, even if they do have ulterior motives in their willingness to answer his questions most of the time.

(it takes a bit of _explaining_ to them that he wants to _understand_ and _respect_ the culture he was born into and taken away from to stop the sneers and jeers and quiet jinxes, and a bit of throwing his own weight around to get a bit of relief.)

(it takes more than a few hexes delivered via Hermione to teach the upper years that he isn't worth picking on, and he is relieved when they adopt their Head of House's policy regarding him.)

Some people treat them like they don't understand English, or are just too _stupid_ to learn magic.

(Hermione owl-orders some of the Uagadou textbooks and decides right then and there that she's going to be the very _damn_ best. Harry sighs, and resolves himself to the inevitability of getting dragged into her madcap scheme.)

"Is she always like that?" Blaise whispers in horror as she begins to wandlessly levitate a textbook with a look of fierce concentration. Third years are watching her with money rapidly changing hands.

Harry thinks of their home going up in flames as troops waited outside for them to try and run, hooting and yelling and shooting out the windows.

"Yeah," he answers distractedly, shaking himself firmly. Memories have no place interrupting the present. "Bit nutty, but brilliant too."

Pansy Parkinson takes Hermione under her wing after her little display.

(" _So what_ if she doesn't know her lineage, _Nott_?" she hissed at him in the library. "For all we know she's a _Dagworth-Granger_ , and I like to have all the facts before I start throwing around slurs. You go ahead and alienate her if you want. _I'm going to be cultivating connections with the potential best witch of our age._ Now, if you'll excuse _me!_ " She tosses her nose in the air and stalks away.)

Where Pansy goes, the other Slytherins do too, and Hermione, bewilderingly, finds herself in an increasingly friendly and warm relationship with her dorm mates who trade her hair charms and gossip for her advice.

(Her advice, not her work, and this is the moment Hermione thinks about Slytherins being _true friends_ and decides to hex the next person who bothers her new friends.)

(She snarls at a Hufflepuff who looks at them disdainfully, and the Hufflepuff bodily jumps and steps back. The group of girls sweep past imperiously on their way to Charms with matching smirks)

Harry's English skills fail him when he enters the dungeons for Potions and he is put under pressure, and of course Snape wastes no time in picking up on it, sneeringly suggesting his education so far had been 'lacking', and he bristles at the insult.

But Harry is a Slytherin rather than a Gryffindor, and the reminders to _duck your head, don't make eye contact, be small, be harmless_ still ring in his head from his childhood.

He focuses on brewing a decent Boil-Cure instead, his notes in flawless Shona.

(When he joins Hermione in the library and borrows her 'special' textbooks, she grins and passes him her notes.)

(It was only a matter of time, after all.)

Harry, much to the rest of his dorm's consternation, hasn't got a subtle bone in his body, or so it seems.

(the topic was discussed late at night once, Draco's hair as wild as his eyes as he whispers to the others. "What if he's playing us, and this is all an act?" he had asked, distressed after their morning Herbology session Harry had stared out (successfully) one of the spiky bushes that had about to cover him in painfully sharp needles. Zabini rolled his eyes and pulled a pillow over his head, but Theo hummed undecidedly. "He might have some..hidden qualities." he admitted reluctantly, and Draco had smiled with the vicious satisfaction of being right.)

So when the other boys catch a glimpse of his scarred back in the shower, a veritable storm in comparison to the bolt that maps across his brow, they spend days agonising over how to approach him with the cunning, guile and tact that was appropriate to the obvious seriousness of the issue.

Greg and Vince ask him instead in the middle of the busy common room, and the room hushes slightly. Hermione, from across the room, raises her head from where she had been writing a History of Magic essay with Tracy Davis.

Harry hums a little as he considers the question, but eventually shrugs. Politics is a bit of a taboo subject, but he's eleven and sees no point in lying.

"Got caught on the wrong side of the Gukurahundi a couple of times," he offers effortlessly. Blaise and Draco share a look of 'who's going to hit him with a silencing charm why is he revealing his biggest weakness this is not how Slytherin _works -_

Greg scrunches up his face. "The what?" he asks, and Harry blinks. "Oh, sorry. Forgot you wouldn't have known. They're troops trained by North Korea and shipped in by Mugabe, that's the Muggle Minister of Magic. They wanted to put down any potential rebellions against Mugabe's rule, so he sent them into a bit of our country that tended to support one of his rivals."

Draco sinks wordlessly into one of the seats. He knows where this is going and _Merlin,_ what the fuck, what the actual fuck -

Harry calmly lays out in simple terms for Greg his early life trying to survive a genocide that had a estimated death toll of 20,000, oblivious to the conversations around the room quieting down as third years to sixth years alike turned round to pay attention.

At the end of it, Greg nods, and ambles back towards the showers. Vince claps him on the shoulder with a grunt and a cheery, "Good job on not being dead," and follows.

Conversations begin to pick back up again, albeit with a lot of glances towards the Boy-Who-Lived (the truth of the moniker becoming more and more apparent) and Hermione, who sets a rough draft of her essay on fire with a jerk of her hand and a glare.

Nobody asks her any questions, and she turns back to her dorm mate and continues their conversation.

Draco thinks, with mild hysteria, that he needs to owl his Father.

(His reply downright praises Potter, which takes Draco by surprise. Secrets are worthless as blackmail when everyone knows them)

Harry didn't know it for many years, but hearing an eleven year old reveal the future of a Britian under a dictatorship jarred a lot of students who had thought that the Dark was the only option available to them.

Harry, who would quietly and truthfully explain what it's like being burned alive in your home - he was an eye opener. He presented the truth, plain and simple, and even if the upper years ignored him, disagreed with him, hated him for what he represented, it became harder and harder to see the precious poster boy of the light in him. The old coot of a headmaster varied between ignoring him and watching him with a predator look in his eye, and if to piss him off, if nothing else, some began to come round to the idea of the Boy Who Lived in green and silver.

Across the board, kids began _thinking,_ and when a Slytherin starts thinking, it is inevitably followed by _plotting._

A small group of fourth years approached Hermione in-between classes, hoping to catch her off-guard.

"How," they had asked her, "Do you live in someplace like that?"

Hermione, only noticing the green and silver on the trimmings of their robes had replied absently as she skimmed through her bag looking for her Uagadou Transfiguration textbook.

"You stop playing their game. Guilt, fear, loss - we only ever lost when we engaged, you see - so you don't take a side, and you keep your head down. I don't like talking about it, you see, because all you can do is save yourself, no matter how much you want to-" she waves a hand in the air carelessly, before taking off for History of Magic at a brisk trot, Transfiguration textbook in hand.

Her words were retold and retold around classrooms, in notes dropped casually in laps as people passed innocently by.

Without knowing it, Harry and Hermione had sparked a _movement_ in Slytherin House. Kids whispered to each other in dormitories and said, ever so quietly, that _they didn't want to die_. That surely there was another way to preserve their traditions and culture without going to _war_. They began to clump together in groups, heads bowed and mutters low, furious and vicious in their passion, shoulders tight as they hunched over parchment. The rest of the school waits with baited breath and half-palmed wands.

 

The rest of the school began to regard the sheer number of owls received at breakfast in the mornings by Slytherin as the new normal as letters winged their way around the globe, each carefully and deviously crafted.

 _What if we don't fight_ , became a more and more common topic in these letters, along with, _Well, what else are we going to do?_

House points fall, as do standards of work. The Quidditch team are sent off from the pitch in disgrace from a match with Ravenclaw following their shocking attitudes and disrespect. The storm brews further, roiling underneath the skin of every snake, the eye surely yet to come.  

No-one knew the severity of the storm that had encompassed his house quite like Severus Snape, who was nursing a bottle of Ogden's Finest most nights now. He had no clue what his snakes had done to drive themselves into such strong, separate camps, but he Did Not Like It. Not Liking something in Snape’s case was usually a disapproving scowl, some cutting words and a suitably humiliating form of punishment for those involved, and he despaired, as it was also becoming more and more obvious it wasn't going to be fixed without some form of intervention. Snape disliked intervening in house politics and quarrels, mainly because it meant that he would be expected to take a side, and doing so without ending up with the Headmaster or other Heads of Houses involved was difficult beyond belief. On top of everything, he had to keep a beady eye on Quirrel as well, and he wistfully thought of quitting his job and being rid of all this teenaged drama.

If wishes were Hippogriffs, he supposed. And while he was at it, he may as well wish to have his arms clean of any mark, and a comfortable cottage in the countryside where he could brew without being disturbed or having to teach tiny imbeciles to poorly try and recreate art that was plainly beyond their grasp.

If he found out little Potter was involved in the crisis that was taking up much too much of his time, well. He would look forward to taking his revenge.

Things came to a head when the majority of Slytherin House had gathered in the common room for some form of peace talks. (after the first-year curfew of course, all agreeing that Firsties were Not Going To Get Involved In This. Slytherins have some standards, and would prefer not to get stabbed in the back by Ice-Cool Daphne Greengrass, or in the front by Will-Set-You-On-Fire-Granger.)

They were settling into opening arguments, presented by Adrian Pucey and Yatin Bhagat respectively, when the common room door opened to reveal Professor Quirrel, sans turban.

The Slytherin Common Room was on lockdown for a week. Nobody entered, and nobody left, no matter what Dumbledore or any of the other teachers did.

The only people in the Common Room were Slytherin House and the possessed teacher.

(Severus Snape railed and railed against the door, eventually exhausting himself and slumping forwards to rest his head against the cool stone, weeping silently in the empty corridor. _He had **failed** his students, his precious snakes, he was meant to protect them - _ )

(From further down the corridor, the Weasley Twins retreated slowly, faces pale, pieces beginning to come together, that this was serious, and there were Firsties in there, just like their brother Ron, no matter that they were Snakes, they were kids - )

(They spent hours upon hours poring over the Map with Lee, determined to find a way in, taking notes of who exactly was still moving. they watched the dots that didn't move for a long time, hearts in their throats. Fred and George and Lee had shared a look, and swallowed their pride. This was bigger than them, bigger than even the Map.

And so, they did what they had swore never to do.

They gave their notes and the Map to Snape, who had looked at them with pale skin and bags under his eyes, and taken it without comment. He didn't take any points from Gryffindor, and the trio took this as a thank-you on his part.)

Some of the students had celebrated the lock-in, had snarled gleefully that they hoped the intruder offed all of the wannabe Death Eaters, do them a favour -

Some were somber, but for the most part the school went about their business.

When Slytherin House emerged as a whole from the doorway, faces grim and blank and drawn, Severus Snape had leapt to his feet with a shouted curse, and began examining Marcus Flint - who had been one of the first to exit - worriedly, demanding to know what happened, in between sending a Patronus to the other teachers.

Wordlessly, the pack split - green and silver hems torn and bloodied and dirty - to allow him access.

In the center of the Common Room was one of his prefects, Gemma Farley, with Harry Potter's head cradled in her lap.

Beside her were four lumps, with Slytherin-green sheets drawn up over their faces.

Severus Snape fell to his knees, running a tremulous hand down the bodies (of the students he had **_failed_** so **_completely_** \- )

This was how McGonagall and Flitwick found them,

a solemn, _silent_ corridor of green-and-silver,

and an oppressively quiet common room,

the only sound that of echoing quiet sobs.

None of Slytherin House would offer any information as to what went on inside the doors of their dungeon home, would turn away with blank faces, and the other teachers let them, too harried with dealing with the Ministry and the Aurors who had been summoned and their own, private grief and regret.

(Severus Snape, however, collected clues and evidence and pieced together a picture that frankly horrified him. Quirrel had entered the Slytherin quarters, Quirrel who had been possessed by the Dark Lord, Quirrel who had laughed and demanded for them to bow before him, Quirrel who had thought to make his students his servants. Quirrel who had demanded for the boy to be brought out, Quirrel who wanted the Boy Who Lived to suffer under his hands.

The students, backlit by the fireplace, who had stood against him. Slytherins, who had stood against the Dark Lord. Who had denied everything everyone expected of them in order to protect a bunch of first years most didn’t even know, who had denied the Dark Lord. Fear is a powerful tool, and they were afraid of Voldemort. But there is a place for fear just as there is a place for war, and fear creates opportunities for growth. Opportunities to learn. Slytherin house found their opportunity to grow in discovering that they didn’t want to live their lives in fear of that man, because they know what a powerful man can do. They know that powerful men rarely stop to consider their own supporters, rarely even consider what they had promised in exchange for support, rarely love their own countries and traditions and cultures, rarely want to preserve these. Slytherin House learned that a madman will burn his own house to the ground if it meant that others would never be able to have it.

Slytherin House learned. The eye of the storm was upon them, and Slytherin House battened down the hatches. Slytherin House said No.

None would say if there was dissent in the ranks. None would say anything much about the people who stood at the front, stared evil in the face. None would say anything about those who stood at the back, faces shrouded in shadow.

Slytherin House said No, and The Dark Lord killed them for it, one by one. He reached three when the door to the dormitories burst open and first years came spilling out like a tide, Hermione in front with anger in her eyes and Harry by her side, of course. What is lightning without thunder; What is one without the other?

He levelled his wand, prepared to kill a fourth to assert his dominance, to beat back this rebellion in his own camp, these children who were supposed to be dumb, easily coerced into understanding that the Dark was the true and rightful path – that the Light would eat them up and burn them all to ashes, burn everything they knew to ashes. Burn it all down.

He levelled his wand at the first year, insignificant in name, insignificant in status, and –

And that’s where the students get patchy, their memories hazy, indistinct, their reports contradictory, confusing.

All Snape knows is that Harry Potter killed Quirrel with his bare hands, in the end, the eleven-year-old murdering a fully-grown man. He thinks of snakes in the grasses, and can’t stop himself from laughing, eventually dissolving into sobs.)

(Three students dead, and one a murderer.)

(Snape doesn’t know what to do. Doesn’t know what kind of monster has made a home in the dungeons. He doesn’t know, and he hates it, and the resentment lingering in his chest burns a little fiercer, a little brighter, fuelled by his confusion. He cannot allow himself to feel sympathy. To feel pity. To feel. If he does, he acknowledges all of what he has done in the past. He acknowledges that he was wrong, acknowledges the fuck-ups he has made in their gross and horrifying entirety.

Severus Snape is not a good man. Severus Snape does not wait by his student’s bedside. Severus Snape does not care for Harry Potter, even if we wears the green and silver. He hates him. He hates everything he stands for, everything he means. He does.)

Meanwhile, Harry Potter lay in the Hospital Wing, unmoving while funerals were arranged and their House mourned.

Hermione came by as often as she was allowed, slipping away to catch the few hours she could with him.

"I'm terrified they're going to send me back," she told him, the only time she ever spoke in her visits, the _without you_ going unsaid.

When Harry woke, it was not to great piles of presents and chocolates, but to a wall of silver-and-green robes and a quiet message of protection.

 _That,_ he decided, _was good enough for him._

 

**Author's Note:**

> holy shit i have loved writing this!!  
> HOWEVER  
> i am aware this contains sensitive material etc etc. if it is inappropriate or inaccurate in any way, please help me fix it!!  
> leave a comment or whatever  
> x


End file.
